all based on the use of commercial third-party add-ins for PC
Excel 2013

TO 512 and 513 make
exclusive use of PC Excel 2013, a component of Microsoft Office 2013.
As detailed below, the course textbooks, exercises, and exams require the use
of PC Excel 2013.
Spreadsheet software other than Excel 2013 (e.g., Excel 2010; Excel for the Mac;
Google docs spreadsheets) is insufficient for TO 512
because of software differences across various Excel implementations.

If a Mac is Windows-enabled and has Office 2013 installed, the Mac can be used
in TO 512 and TO 513.
For further details, see "Can We Use a Mac Instead of a PC in TO 512? In
TO 513?" further below.

Jan-Feb
2015
Section 004/451: 6:30-9:30
Mondays (452 is the Section number for Evening MBA Program students; 004 is for
all others)
Section 001: 12:40-2:10 p.m.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Section 002: 2:10-3:40 Tuesdays
and Thursdays
Section 003/451: 6:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesdays (451 is the Section number for Evening
MBA Program students; 003 is for all others)

TO 513: (Professor Thomas J. Schriber) Nov-Dec
2014
Section 001/451: 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Tuesdays (451 is the Section number for Evening MBA Program students; 001 is
for all others)

Mar-Apr
2014
Section 001: 12:40-2:10 p.m.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Section 002/451: 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Tuesdays (451 is the Section number for Evening MBA Program students; 002 is
for all others)

There
are no formal pre-requisites for TO 512, other than graduate student standing.
Because most students already know at least the bare-bones elements of spreadsheeting, however, the course begins with Excel
Chapter 4 in the course textbook. (See the book by Parsons et al., described
further below.) Note though that everyone must work his/her way through Excel
Chapters 1 through 3 on his/her own, and everyone in the course must do a set
of three auto-graded Excel 2013 Projects based on Chapters 1 through 3.
The course is fast paced and intensive, making it possible to achieve in-depth
coverage of most of the surprisingly rich, powerful and practical features and
capabilities of Excel 2013 within a 6-week time frame. Students gain Microsoft
Certifiable Application-Specialist knowledge of Excel 2013. This means that,
after completing the course and the Appendices in the book, students could take
(and presumably pass) the Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Excel 2013
certification exam, at a cost of ~$100. (Appendix E in the book provides
certification-exam particulars.)

The Parsons et al. textbook takes a
tutorial-based, case-study approach. Each tutorial chapter concludes with
exercises based on business cases. The book contains twelve Excel 2013 tutorial
chapters, dealing with such topics as charts and graphing, functions (including
financial and time-and-date functions) and formulas; managing records within
Excel; Pivot Tables; working with multiple worksheets and workbooks; use of
Auditing Tools to troubleshoot spreadsheets and to come to a better
understanding of applications built by others; use of Microsoft Query to
extract data from Access databases; structured what-iffing
and sensitivity analysis with Data Tables, Scenarios, and the Scenario Manager;
Goal Seeking; an introduction to linear and nonlinear optimization; the
recording of Macros; and the light editing of Macros.

Here's
how you can answer that question: Spend some time browsing the TO 512 textbook.
(Check for a two-hour reserve copy in the University Reserves collection in the
Shapiro Library on the central campus diagonal; or go to a bookstore; or borrow
the text from a colleague.) In each of chapters 4 through 11, scan the
"Review Assignments" and any one of the “Cases.” (You'll find the
Review Assignments and Cases at the back of each chapter.) If you can imagine
yourself being able to do at least about two thirds of those exercises quite
comfortably (and, by extension, if you feel comfortable with about two thirds
or more of the concepts in the book and their operational implementation), you
are probably overqualified for TO 512. (You could fill in your "concept
gaps" and their operational implementation on your own, without
spending the time and tuition money to take TO 512.) Otherwise, taking TO 512
is probably in order.

If you judge that you're overqualified
for TO 512, give serious consideration to taking TO 513. (TO 512 or equivalent
know-how in Excel is a TO 513 pre-requisite.) A suggestion for self-checking
your readiness for TO 513 (without having taken TO 512) is given in the second
paragraph in the next topic.

TO
513 has TO 512 (or equivalent fluency in Excel)
as a pre-requisite. Excel-based TO 513 takes up the topics of risk analysis
using Monte Carlo simulation, decision analysis using decision trees
(probability trees), and linear and nonlinear optimization. Commercial
third-party Excel add-ins are used in the course.
(These add-ins include @Risk, PrecisionTree, and
Solver which are in the RSB (Ross School of Business) computer network for
local and remote use on PC's and Windows-enabled Macs (remote use is
accomplished via the use of the Ross "virtual lab” software) , and are
additionally available in student versions, downloadable from the vendor's
website. Students can do the course assignments on their own computer running
Excel 2013.)

If you haven't taken TO 512, a
good way to check out your "Excel readiness" for TO 513 is to work
with Chapter 2 in the TO 513 textbook (described elsewhere at this site). This
chapter provides a review of Excel. (We don't cover Chapter 2 in TO 513, but
start beyond that point in the book.) If you are comfortable with the Excel
tools applied in the examples worked out in Chapter 2 ("Breakeven Analysis
at Great Threads"; "Estimating Sensitivity of Demand to Price at
Links"; "Ordering with Quantity Discounts at Sam's Bookstores";
"Calculating NPV at Acron"), then you are
qualified to take TO 513 without having formally taken TO 512.

Application areas for the
methodologies studied in TO 513 include Finance, Marketing, Human Resources,
and Operations Management. The textbook contains literally dozens of worked-out
examples (models) for such applications, and hundreds of exercises for
practice. Typical of the worked-out examples in the book are "Estimating a
sales response function," "Determining optimal pricing,"
"Determining an advertising schedule," "Capital budgeting,"
"Bidding for a government contract," "Scheduling workers,"
"Production scheduling," and "Telephone call processing."

Students
who aren't already running Microsoft Office 2013 on their PC's (see the next
topic here) or Windows-enabled Macs can buy Microsoft Office 2013 at the UM
Computer Showcase (in the basement of the Michigan Union) with their student id
for $50.

More details are provided at the UM
Computer Showcase website. Google for Computer Showcase umich.edu, or go here:

Excel 2013 is available for local use
in the Ross Computing Network at computers in the reservable
study rooms in the Ross Quadrangle, and for remote use over the internet using
Ross "virtual lab" software. For information about the virtual lab
software, go to http://www.bus.umich.edu and search on virtual lab, or try browsing to:

If
your Mac is Windows-enabled and has Office 2013 installed, you can use a Mac in
TO 512 and TO 513. (Note that you can't use the version of Excel written for
the Mac, because Mac Excel differs from the PC Excel 2013 on which TO 512 and
513 are based. For more details, read the rest of this section.)

There
are alternative two approaches for working with a Mac in TO 512 and TO
513.

1. Get the VMWare Fusion PC emulator (from the UM Computer Showcase) for the
Mac. You can run the Mac operating system and Windows in parallel with VMWare
Fusion, which is considered to be much better than using Boot Camp. (With Boot
Camp you can run Windows and the Mac operating system too, but not in parallel.
There is also PC emulation software named Parallels, which is like Fusion but
costs about twice as much. Between the two, Apple recommends Fusion.) Also get
Windows and Microsoft Office 2013 at the Computer Showcase. Install these three
pieces of software on the Mac and you're good to go.

2.
Use the Mac and the downloadable "virtual lab" software provided by
Ross to support remote use of software in the Ross computing network via the
Internet. (A high speed Internet connection is recommended.)

For
information about the virtual lab software, see the preceding topic here.
If there are questions or problems, call Ross Computing Services, 734-615-3000,
Option 2, or visit the Concierge desk near the Tappan Street entry to the Ross
Quadrangle.

Here
are some insights into the extent to which TO 512 is Windows Excel
2013-centric:

The
POAC textbook discusses Excel 2013 and displays Excel 2013 screen
shots.
(POAC is the textbook used in TO 512; see below.)

The
starting files for assigned POAC cases are
Excel 2013 files.

Work submitted
to the CTools website is to take the form of
Excel 2013 files.

The
exam is based on Excel 2013.

Assigned
work started in a version of Excel other than Excel 2013 might have
to be finished in Excel 2013 to apply Excel 2013 features not
available in the version of Excel in which the work was started.

Students
in TO 512 are welcome to work with alternative versions of Excel to the
extent possible, subject to the above conditions, but the smoothest way to
proceed is to use Excel 2013 from the get-go.

What
about using a Mac in TO 513? If your Mac is Windows-enabled
and you have Excel 2013, or if you are game to use the virtual lab software on
your Windows-enabled Mac, no problem.Otherwise, no
deal. Palisade Corporation, the vendor of the commercial @Risk and PrecisionTree add-ins that we use in TO 513, does not make
versions of those add-ins that run with Mac Excel.
(The Mac market evidently isn't big enough to justify that. Note that, broadly
speaking, "business" uses Windows-based software, and so you are
probably better served in the long run by learning Windows Excel 2013 in TO
512/513 than by learning variants of it.)

Yes.
In TO 512 there is one required textbook and a required user-specific Project
Access Code used to gain access to SAM (Skills Assessment Method) Excel 2013
Projects. (SAM 2013 Projects is a live-in-the-application project-based
homework and assessment product providing one Project for each chapter in the
TO 512 textbook. The Project Access Code is used use to create a user-specific
account at the SAM 2013 Excel
site.)

The
TO 512 textbook is Excel 2013 New Perspectives Comprehensive, by Parsons, Oja, Ageloff, and Carey, ISBN-13:
978-1-285-16933-0. (The authors have written more than one Excel book, so be careful to buy the right book. Let the
ISBN number be your guide.)

The
textbook and "Printed Access Card" are most economically bought in a
bundle that has the bundle ISBN number: ISBN-13: 978-1-285-72540-6. The bundle
is available for TO 512 in Ann Arbor textbook stores (Barnes and Noble in the
basement of the Michigan Union; and Ulrich's, just north of the point where
East University dead-ends into South University). If buying locally, phone
ahead to be certain the store of choice has the bundle in stock.

TO 512 textbook and software
particulars are provided in the TO 512 syllabus,
which is in Resource folder 01 at the TO 512 CTools
website. (See the next FAQ topic.)
Students registered for the course have access to the CTools
site. Others can request the syllabus from yphuang@umich.edu

The TO 513 textbook for the
November/December 2014 course is Practical Management Science,
4th Edition, by Winston and Albright, copyrighted 2012, ISBN-13:
978-1-111-53131-7. All of TO 513 is based on the book. The 4th
edition addresses the Excel 2010 versions of @Risk (risk analysis) and PrecisionTree (decision analysis), which are commercial
Excel add-ins, and uses Excel 2010’s Solver (optimization). Excel 2013 will be
used in the November/December 2014 course, even though the textbook is for
Excel 2010. (The 5th edition of the TO 513
textbook will not be available until January of 2015, and so in 2014 Fall B
offering of TO 513, we will use the 4th edition of the book.)
Attempts to make do with earlier editions of Practical Management Science
should be avoided for your own sanity. There are five options (below) for
having access to the book. Base any online searches on the book’s ISBN number.

(1)
Buy a new print copy of the book in an Ann Arbor textbook bookstore or at
cengagebrain.com

(2) Buy a
used copy of the book at an Ann Arbor textbook store (or possibly at amazon.com
or barnesandnoble.com or ???).

(3)
Buy 6-month use of the eBook at cengagebrain.com

(4)
Buy 6-month use of the five eChapters covered
(chapters 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10) from cengagebrain.com

(5) Rely
exclusively on a two-hour reserve copy of the book. This is to be discouraged.
Taking the time to get to the University Reserves in the Shapiro library and
then possibly having to wait to use the book (because someone else is using it)
would be an inefficient use of your time.

TO
513 Textbook and software particulars are provided on page 4 in the TO 513
syllabus,
which is in Resource 01 at the TO 513 CTools website.
(See the next FAQ topic.)
Students registered for the course have access to the CTools
site. Others can request the syllabus from schriber@umich.edu

Yes,
each of the courses has a University of Michigan CTools
website. You must be registered at these sites to access them. After
authorization (provided automatically for those registered in the course, or
otherwise requested of yphuang@umich.edu
for TO 512, or requested of schriber@umich.edu
for TO 513), to reach these sites you should browse to CTools.umich.edu and log
in using your UM uniqname and password. Then click on
the relevant TO 512 or TO 513 tab in the row of tabs at the top of the screen.

No;
there is no coursepack to buy in either TO 512 or TO
513. The objective in each course is that "nothing touches paper" Except for lectures and office hours, all
communication from instructor to students, and from students to instructor, is
electronic. (There is one exception to "nothing touches paper": a
print copy of the syllabus is given out at the first class meeting in each
course, as a matter of convenience for the students. The syllabus is also
available at the corresponding course website.)

The
course day section or sections meet for 75 minutes twice a week. The evening
section meets once a week for 165 minutes (75 minutes; 15-minute break; 75 more
minutes). Meetings take the form of a Lecture/Demonstration based on projecting
and manipulating live-in-the-application spreadsheets onto a large screen at
the front of the room. The starting-point lecture files (that are built in
Excel) are made available to students at the course website prior to class, so
that interested students can easily "follow along" on their own
laptops if that's their preferred learning style. Assigned casework and
modeling is then completed on the student's own time.

Class
meetings are designed to provide an effective learning experience in each of
three dimensions: visual (thanks to computer-screen projections of
live-in-the-application Excel worksheets); audio (thanks to discussion of the
projected material); and tactile (thanks to students optionally "following
along" on their laptop as the instructor manipulates the projected
starting-point worksheets to further develop them). Consistent class attendance
saves time in the long run and, when reinforced by completing assigned
exercises, pays dividends in the form of an in-depth conceptual and operational
takeaway from the course(s).

Yes, when circumstances call for it, Email/Announcements
are sent via the course CTools website.
Email/Announcements are important means of communication, especially for
courses that only meet once or twice a week. These Email/Announcements are not
only sent as email, but are retained at the course website for later optional
review. As a result, students do not have to save or manage Email/Announcements on
their own computer.

Students
also sometimes use email to ask for help outside of class. For example, if a
student is having difficulty completing an assigned exercise, the student has
the option of sending the work-in-progress file to yphuang@umich.edu (for TO 512) or to schriber@umich.edu (for TO 513) as an
email attachment, describing in the body of the email the difficulty being
experienced and requesting that the work in progress be reviewed and
suggestions be given for resolving the difficulty.

There
is no formal groupwork in TO 512 or TO 513. Each
student is expected to take full responsibility for his/her own work and submit
the result of that work under his/her own name to the website (the SAM site in
some cases, and the CTools site in other cases. ).
However, it is OK for a student to get help from other students and/or the
instructor when working his/her way through an exercise. For example, suppose a
student reaches a point in a case in which it isn't clear to the student what
the next step is to be, and/or how to go about accomplishing that next step.
Then it's perfectly fine for the student to consult with one or more other
students in that regard in an attempt to overcome the obstacle, and/or to ask
the instructor about the problem, whichever is more convenient. (The most
time-efficient way to ask questions of the instructor is usually by sending
email to yphuang@umich.edu (TO 512) or
to schriber@umich.edu (TO 513),
describing the situation and attaching the work-in-progress workbook to the
email.)

For
the sake of camaraderie and efficiency, some students might also occasionally
get together while each works his/her way through a case, talking about various
aspects of the case as they proceed. That's fine, and can enhance the learning
experience, but each student must still take full responsibility for his/her
own work and individually submit the result of that work under his/her own name
to the relevant website.

TO
512 and 513 each conclude with a demanding exam (typically accounting for 40%
of the course grade). The exams are hands-on (that is, they are written on a
computer and involve tightly timed use of the course software).

The
exams are optional for those who have done the assigned homework in
substantially correct fashion (as described quantitatively in the relevant
syllabus) and are satisfied to take a course grade of "Pass." (This
option is referred to in the syllabus as the "AutoPass.")
Those trying for an "Excellent" (up to the top 35% of the class) or
"Good" (up to the next circa 40% of the class) must write the
concluding exam.

Ample
resources are provided in TO 512 and TO 513 for students to make up for a missed
class through their own independent efforts. Such students can take
advantage of (1) the course textbook, (2) the
detailed game plan spelled out in the course syllabus, (3) the availability of
electronic materials at the CTools websites, (4) the
fact that all assignments are submitted to relevant websites, (5) the online
starting-point lecture workbooks, and (6) the video-recorded
Lecture/Demonstrations (for which links are posted week by week at the CTools website).

UM
MBA students who are not familiar in depth with Excel and are not yet
able to use Excel comfortably and almost instinctively in formal or informal
professional contexts to organize, store, manipulate, analyze and display
numerical and/or textual information should
give high priority to taking TO 512 at a minimum, preferably as MBA I's
in anticipation of their MAP project and summer internship. Other University of
Michigan graduate students for whom spreadsheeting
can be a practical tool and who are not yet completely fluent in spreadsheeting can also consider taking the course(s). (But
see the "Unit Entry Restriction" further below.)

It
is estimated that about 60% of the students in the MBA program have taken TO
512 by the time they graduate, and that about 40% have
taken TO 513 by that time. Some MBA II's taking TO 512 have said, paraphrased,
"If only I had been able to use Excel like this during my MAP project
and/or during my summer internship, and/or in other courses during my first
year in the program!" Evening MBA Program students have said while taking
TO 512, "I'm already using this material in my day-by-day work life. This
is probably the most immediately-usable course I've taken in the MBA
program."

No!
If you took TO 311 (or BIT 311) as a UM undergrad, then you have, in effect,
already taken TO 512, and cannot get credit for taking it again. (TO 311 is a
3-credit BBA course which, during the first half of the course, covers the same
material as TO 512, using the same textbook.)

The
IOE (Industrial and Operations Engineering) Department maintains a list of
"forbidden" non-IOE courses for which IOE graduate students do not
receive credit toward their graduate IOE degree (presumably because the course
content is available in one form or another within the IOE department). TO 512
and TO 513 are each on this "forbidden"
list. IOE graduate students are welcome to take the courses for credit on their
transcript, but should be aware that the credit will not count toward their IOE
degree. For more information about IOE "forbidden" courses, go to
this site:

When
course registration first opens, only Ross and Ross-affiliated (dual degree)
students can register at Wolverine Access for Ross courses. Later (about two
weeks or so after registration first opens), any UM graduate student can
register for the courses (conditioned on the courses not yet being full) or add
his or her name to a waitlist.

In
any event, students not yet registered are welcome to come to the opening
class, even if Wolverine Access says there is no space available in the course.
It is often possible to sign overrides in such cases for various reasons. Every
effort is made to accommodate all students who want to take the courses.

If
students try to register for TO 512 or TO 513 at Wolverine Access and the
course is full, they can use Wolverine Access to have their name put on a waiting list. The instructor monitors the
waiting list and if space becomes available in the course, sends email
(top-down) to potentially-affected waitlisted students, describing the steps to
follow if they still want to register.

If
you have some time to devote to the study of Excel (such as in the summer
preceding your first or second year in the MBA program), it is strongly
recommended that you study from the Parsons, Oja, et
al. book that is used in TO 512. See the textbook details described earlier at
this FAQ site.

Note
that the TO 512 course starts with Chapter 4 (“Analyzing and Charting Financial
Data”) in the Parsons, Oja, et al. book, assuming
prior knowledge of the material in the first three chapters. You can fruitfully
study as much material from this book as possible. The more features of Excel
you learn now, the less time you'll have to spend if and when you take the TO
512 course.

Browse through the books used in TO
512 and TO 513. (Check the two-hour reserves in the
University Reserves collection in the Shapiro Library on the central campus
diagonal; or go to a bookstore; or borrow the book or books from a colleague.)

Simply come to the opening TO
512 and/or TO 513 class meeting (whether or not you're registered for the
course) and listen to the introduction, discussion of course content and
structure, and the detailed presentation/discussion of the Week 1 material.

Additional
questions?
You can ask them of the TO 512 instructor (Professor Yan P. Huang; yphuang@umich.edu) or the TO 513 instructor
(Prof. Thomas J. Schriber, schriber@umich.edu) via email.